Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When you were born it was like watching the birth of a star.

The house of M on Krakoa, despite its great placement, was rarely ever lively. Close to the shore, the mansion was beautiful in its own way just like any other home customized by mutants.
Oh, people could see the effort in design. It had metallic edges (a stubborn customization choice) with an overgrown, or rather entangled, flora of Krakoa. Perhaps it was that. Mayhaps the nature covering the walls made it look like it was desolate. 
Perhaps it was because the home looked encased in overgrown fauna that no one ever visited.

Well…

There was a half-truth to the statement if one were to argue the technicalities of inhabitancy.
If one truly wished to argue about such an insignificant matter and ask how many of the rooms were occupied,

well...

It was easier to list the one room that was actually occupied rather than list the numerous empty ones our inhabitant, singular, called ‘guest’ rooms.

After all, it is common sense that such a beautiful mansion should have more than just one inhabitant. But unfortunately that wasn’t the case. The home was for one man alone. A silver haired, crystalline blue eyed man with just as many names as the empty bedrooms in his house.

‘Isn't it lonely?’ one might ask.
Very courageous.
But courage isn't entitled to recieve answers to dumb questions.

‘There is no time to dwell upon the matter,’ he’d always answer.

It was true. He genuinely believed he was too busy worrying about the island’s structure rather than simply having a moment to think about himself.

Unfortunately, distracting oneself does not in fact make existing problems disappear. 

And as always, he ignored this logical side of his brain. Opting to blind out the reasonable thinking process he would apply to everyone but himself, Erik Magnus Lensherr continued to work.

“Take a break, Magnus,” A familiar voice pulled him aside after a meeting. It seemed he wasn't as discreet in overworking as he thought. “The rest of the council will handle this.”

Charles. Always finding ways to torment him, even as allies. The former idealist always looked out for him in his… own way.
As always, he found his friend applying his idealistic solution to him.
Always believing the textbook method was the best method, Charles had accidentally put him in many different difficult situations.

This was no different. His old friend’s good intentions always managed to anguish him further.
He argued back, asserting he needed no ‘break’, but again it was futile.

Now, here he stood, finding that one of the very rare occasions where he was not needed had come. 

‘A vacation of sorts,’ he could practically hear his old friend in his mind. 

In a figurative sense, this time.

 There’s not much to do as always. But it was enjoyable. It was peaceful, an appreciated gift of serendipity, a moment to thank the world for the life given. A calming breeze-

God, it was dull.

It was horribly dull.

Very. Very dull. 

Not in a sense where he’d wish for combat. He wasn’t a fight-crazed lunatic, unlike… a few certain mutants he knew with animal motifs. Cough. 

He didn’t itch for a fight.

No, he would never wish for a fight. He was better than that.

He just… merely expected it. That’s different.

“Yes, very different from just wishing for a fight,” He’d tell himself.

 There was always calm before a storm. A tide in before a tsunami, and subtle cracks in paradise before war. 

Surely everyone has experienced a moment in life where there is certainty in the upcoming events.
An example:
a furry stinking Canadian is leaping full force at you with sharp metallic claws.

Certain death.

There are humanoid magenta robots near a heavily mutant-populated area.

Death again.

Your very unstable daughter listens to the idiotic advice your loathed offspring gives.

Death- or more so the end of mutants that time.

Even aside from mutant matters, when he was yet the master of magnetism, he learned.
He knew prescient warnings of massacre. The thundering sound of marching boots.
The sound of a vehicle unloading, hearing something soft, thudding one by one, too soft to be inorganic.
Women and children screaming as men walk into concrete rooms with smokestacks. Hundreds of men pointing intricate machinery that spits metal-

You understand the point.

As long as a man keeps his long-term memory and pattern recognition skills, at some point, he will gain the skill of prediction.
With this skill, the man will believe he could prevent the events from occurring again. From now on, he will stay vigilant, always sensing useful metals and danger.
With every turn of events, he will predict a new outcome, hundreds of possibilities from one difference in choice. This man had done so for nearly a century. Even now, when a day resigned of war greets him, the string of thoughts never leave him.

These ‘predictions’ or thoughts are always rapid. Ticking in between heart beats, a possibility indulged before the previous one was even solved.  It had to be. The laws of physics never stopped to give him a chance to breathe before coming up with a solution. His life, or even worse, others’, could end in that same heartbeat.

Huh. Perhaps his... son *cough* took just a little after him.

Compared to situations like those, ones he had slowly grown accustomed to, this felt far too slow.
Every minute left an open slot for disaster. After all, what was a man who spent all his life measured in seconds supposed to do with a whole quiet day alone? 

Aside from household chores. Which he already finished long ago.

The mutant master of magnetism isn’t exempt from basic tidiness.

Surely there were more interesting things outside. Even if those events weren't for him, it wouldnt hurt to watch others enjoy life.
Begrudgingly, he moved to the open terrace of the mansion and watched other mutants outside. The mix of mutant civilians and the island's almost magical nature was beauty impossible to capture in words. The local flora and fauna never ceased to amaze him. He held great admiration for what beauty the living island held.

His gaze moved, shifting from nature to the mutant subsociety. 

An elderly woman taking a leisurely walk, two youngsters with loving gazes in their eyes, a mutant child playing with her friend, and… 

Ouch.

Sometimes, he wonders why he feels an ache in his heart every time he looks at Krakoa. It could be a reminder of all the previous sacrifices made. Or was it fear for the island’s fate? Perhaps it was just his old age, and he developed tachycardia-

Okay, now thats just silly, Max.

No, he knows.

A little too well.

It feels selfish. It feels unreasonable. 

It feels far too familiar. Like a constant in his life, he would feel this… emptiness.

A victory, people would chime. And in all sense of the word, it truly was a victory. He should feel triumphant (mind you, he really did try to feel victorious), but all he felt was muddled. Confused. Dissatisfied. Just like the Savage lands, just like Genosha, just like...

Every single time. 

The pragmatic logical part of his mind tells him that the past is the past. It proclaims words far too similar to his old friend, Charles. 

‘We created a utopia,’ the voice would whisper, ‘free of death. Isn’t this all we wanted?”

Yes. This was what he wanted. He shook his head, trying to shake off the feeling.
But what of everyone else?
Now with this utopia would all that suffering just cease and be forgotten?

It would be best forgotten in the newer generations. A generation free of war. But, atlas he was not a man of reason. Unlike what people thought, he was quite emotional.

*cough* Perhaps that's where both his daughter got their colorful personalities from. *cough*

Anyhow. With this information in mind, his illogical and emotional response was "It's unfair."

It was unfair how the next generation got to live a life he never got. A life his family never had. A life-

He always had to stop himself. He can't stay angry or resentful. Last time he did, history books recorded it.

Taking a deep breath he told himself.
This was what he had fought for, died for, lived for.

Is it now?

He stared off into space from his balcony, most likely earning a few confused or concerned glances from the mutant civilians down on the ground.

What did he live for? Why did he incessantly challenge the status quo? 

Sure, it was unjust. But the X-Men or even the well-known heroes of America never challenged it. They were only ever reactive to a challenge, striving to maintain the ever-perpetuating status quo. Reactive only to threats against it, a threat like him.

Was it anger?

At a certain point in time, yes. It was. He felt vengeful, like the world owed him an apology or, at the very least, compensation. He fought over and over again, justifying his repugnant actions of mindless violence and sacrifice. Those times would come up in his mind like an uninvited guest. But those were ages ago; he now has more purpose than just vengeance. 

But it leaves others to wonder.
Both human and mutant affected by his actions sit down to ponder his character, to judge his actions and morals.

"What could the master of magnetism, a man of his caliber, have lost to be this upset?"

Their questions reached him. But again, courage to ask a question doesnt not make them entitled to an answer.

Oh, how he hated this part of solidarity. He wished -no- begged for this insufferable mental dialogue to be a malignant external force. He prayed it was Charles trying to indoctrinate him, to torment him, to…

No, let’s not go down that path. Last time he either ignored and distracted himself or blamed anyone but himself, things did not go well. That was another page in the history books.

He knows he shouldn't dwell upon these thoughts.

These feelings.

But every now and then, a figurative ‘dam’ broke. One that he had created for himself. One he created because he told himself hysteria and rage did not have a place in utopia.
But nothing is permanent. The cracks couldn’t stand the pressure anymore. The leaks would grow into a stream, and the stream turned into this. A never-ending flood of guilt, resentment, repulse, and heartbreak.

He knew. He just never looked it in the eye.

Chapter Text

He had never dreamt of having a family as a young man. 

After all, war had no place for infants.
This changed with time, like everything else, and the young man fell in love. Love, as incomprehensible and vague as it is, was powerful.

Take this into consideration:

There are more stars than there are grains of sand on all the shores and beaches of Earth.
There are more trees on earth than there are stars scattered in the nyx of night,  brightening up the sky.
All of those three astronomical digits combined would not even amount to one trillionth of what he felt the moment she was born.

Anya.

Oh dear, Anya.

The two had truly created something… special. Something beautiful even after the horrors they faced together. The child looked so much like his love, Magda. The child had also taken after her mother. Most likely thanks to Magda's teachings of compassion and understanding mixed with his own teachings of self respect.
One trait he appreciated.
He wasn’t sure how he would have treated a child with his temper, emotionality, and face.

(Fate made him, in fact, go through that experience with all three of his later children.)

She was an angel with her dark brown hair and rich caramel skin, which she inherited from her mother.
To be fair, she looked like Magda had given birth to her alone (a joke that was tossed around town before the tragedy struck).
She had no trace of his younger black hair or then silver streaks. She definitely did not have the crystalline blue eyes he grew to hate either.
Dear Magda had always joked about how disappointed he must have been to see she looked nothing like him. In truth, he had never been more glad.

And seeing as how his… son turned out, he was probably right in feeling that way

The next words may make him sound like a far too doting father, but in his eyes, it was simply the truth. Anya was exceptional. Brilliant and intelligent, all while being kind.
She was empathetic, unlike him. She made him reminiscent of the times when he was younger, trusting and forgiving. She was opposite to the already jaded man, about to lose even that sliver of empathy soon after her far-too-short years of life.

She was the same Anya. The Anya who played with her friends and neighbors, always kind and sharing whatever toys she had brought.
The same child who would make faces at him whenever his stubble tickled her face.
She had always liked being held up in the air and spun around.
The child who gagged at the sight of peas and would make absurd arguments to avoid having them. 

He promised that this child would never face the atrocities he grew up with. He promised she'd never see a drop of blood fall from her skin.

But of course, he had always failed to keep any kind of promises.

She was the same child, Anya, who screamed papa whilst the burnt flesh on her neck slowly strangled her. There was no blood as she was burnt alive.
She was the same angel who didn’t have the mercy of a normal open casket funeral.

No one can describe the emotions a parent faces when their child leaves the world before them. His wife, Magda, the one who promised through sickness and health.
The love of his life had turned her back on him once she saw what that pain did to him.
Fate was cruel, making him blind to the fact that she was carrying twins when she left. If only that death could have been prevented. If only those wretched beasts did not stop him from rescuing her. If only he had just hidden his powers from the world. If-

A never ending loop of what-ifs drives even a good man insane. 

If he was honest, he was never really a ‘good’ man in the first place. So imagine what that line of thought did to him.
You wouldn’t require too much imagination, afterall everyone on Earth knew of his crimes against humanity.

It certainly wasn’t his… most refined moments.

He told himself afterwards the past was the past. He changed his ways, tried to change from his belief of offense being the best defense. Retribution, as sweet as it is, did not reverse what was done. His only option was to prevent future similar cases. 

Never again.

He told himself over and over again, just to have the same story repeat yet again and again.
A simple promise to one mutant civilian.
Then the Savage lands.
Then Genosha.

It was a never ending loop of making promises of safety, just to fail those he swore to protect. He kept rising to his feet after being swept down. He kept relentlessly proving his point, trying to make others understand. The rest of the following events leading to the creation of paradise are history. 

Do not misunderstand what he thought. Just because he told himself the past could not be reversed did not mean he stopped thinking about her. The grief, heartache, and…

God, how he missed her.

He would do anything to bring her back. To bring back his child.

To bring her into this paradise he'd created.

In a cruel twist of fate, far before the upbringing of the paradise Krakoa, he saw eyes far too similar to Anya’s once more. If she was given the time to grow up, to become an adult, would she have looked like her? Wanda had the same auburn hair and dark eyes.

He truly wished the best for her, but tried his best (in his own twisted ways at the time) to help.

And yet like destiny’s cruel play he made the same mistakes as every other time. How blinded he was to see his own child, the reason for his fight, as a soldier. Out of every mistake he had made, he would never forgive himself for this.

Then there was a third chance that came by. A child that was far too similar to him.

Lorna had and still has traits he fears.
The same anger, emotionality, swings in mood as he did far back before Krakoa.

It's needless to even ponder about how that father daughter relationship turned, and is turning, out.

Perhaps if he hadn’t been so brash and angry, he could have made a decent father.
Maybe in a different universe the four of his children would be living a normal life free of fight.

But he would never know. No one could. 

He told himself that every night, every waking moment, and breath. He never allowed himself to hope or even dwell on dreams. It would only shatter him further.

Magneto snapped out of his thoughts, blinking as he slightly shook his head. He noticed how the passerby outside of his home were staring at him, some with concern or even fear.

Ah. Right.

He was still on his balcony staring into blank space.

To be frank, having the menacing master of magnetism (regardless of whether he was an ally or foe) staring at them from his home was probably not what they were expecting. He was appreciative for once at how well his helmet covered his eyes. 

Watching Krakoa’s infuriating- no, no, wonderful reunited families had ended. Despite how he was staring blankly at an unspecified point in space he did not wish to scare them. Turning around, Magneto decided to finish reading a book or do something to pass the time. He refused to be a bitter sulking old man.